The gunman entered the business early Monday morning and shot five of his coworkers to death before killing himself. The company is one of the nation's largest manufacturers of awnings for camper vans, motor coaches and sports utility vehicles.

Monday’s shooting marks the second time a gunman has opened fire on unsuspecting Floridians in Central Florida, leaving a trail of devastation as the Orlando community is only just beginning to heal the wounds remaining from the Pulse Nightclub shooting, which left 49 dead last summer.

For years, the two sides have engaged in a back-and-forth battle over how, exactly, to prevent ongoing gun crimes across Florida and the country.

Gun rights groups say the shooting could have been prevented if employees had been provided the means necessary to fight back.

“Once again we see a murderer taking advantage of a ‘soft target’ where employees are prohibited from possessing an effective means of self-defense,” Sean Caranna of Florida Carry told Sunshine State News Tuesday. “The murderer was a known threat, yet the business failed to provide security for its employees and would not allow them to carry for their own defense.”

The self-defense argument is one groups like Florida Carry have used in the Florida Legislature as they push for the expansion of gun rights, urging lawmakers to pass bills to allow gun owners to carry their firearms in airports, schools and in public.

Many of the laws proposed this legislative session to expand Second Amendment rights never saw the light of day due to political hardball from Senate leadership, which refused to hear many of the measures.

Gun safety advocates’, on the other hand, say curbing gun violence begins with restricting access to firearms, making it more difficult to purchase and use guns.

It wasn’t long before politicians pounced on what they saw as a lack of action from state and national lawmakers to lessen the frequency of shootings and violent crimes.

Even gubernatorial hopefuls said simply providing “well wishes” wasn’t going to cut it when the rubber hit the road for gun safety.

“We must do more to stop Florida’s epidemic of gun violence -- not simply send our thoughts and prayers in the wake of lost lives,” said Tallahassee mayor and Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Andrew Gillum.

Bloomberg-led Everytown chimed in early Monday saying the time was now for lawmakers to beef up gun safety measures to ensure shootings like the Forsyth shooting and Pulse didn’t become commonplace.

“We should all be able to go to work, dance in a nightclub or enjoy a night out at the movies without the threat of gun violence looming over our heads,” said Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense Florida chapter leader Michelle Gajda. “We must demand more of our lawmakers and work together to find common sense solutions that will protect all communities in our state and across the nation. We deserve better.”

Gajda and Everytown were some of the loudest voices in the fight against several gun measures moving their way through the Florida legislature this year,

Time and time again, Gajda and her band of “Everytown moms” showed up to rail against legislation to expand gun rights in the Sunshine State.

Pro-gun groups like the National Rifle Association have criticized organizations like Everytown for being props from the liberal left and Michael Bloomberg to push issues they say they don’t know anything about, as part of a “faux-informed” movement.

“Never in 40 years have I seen a group of women come in as a group who apparently didn’t know why they were there or what they were doing,” NRA lobbyist and past president Marion Hammer told Sunshine State News in March. “I’ve never seen it before and I hope I never see it again because that’s fake activism, as far as I’m concerned.”

The NRA has not yet publicly commented on Monday’s shooting.

For Caranna, the shooting serves as a dark reminder that Florida must do more to protect its citizens from the threat of violence.

“This tragedy should serve as a reminder to business owners that they have a duty to protect their employees or at least allow employees the tools necessary to protect themselves, especially when there have been prior acts of workplace violence,” he said.

Comments

Firearms laws in the state legislature are NOT Second Amendment issues. They have nothing to do with the federal Constitution. These laws seek to expand A1 S8 of the FLORIDA CONSTITUTION which governs the hows and wheres of carrying in the state. The Second Amendment was written as a prohibition on the FEDERAL government, not the states. The use of the term "second amendment rights" for all things gun frustrates attempts to restore federalism, and upholds the hoax of modern courts in incorporating the Bill of Rights against the states. Words mean things, federalism matters.

If it wasn't a gun it would have been something else. China and Japan suffer mass stabbing. Sounds nuts but it happens. Next will be IEDs, the Columbine boys had propane bombs planned they just didn't work. The Aurora Colorado movies shooter had explosives so advanced the military had to come to his apartment and remove them. You can't stop crazy with more laws against the legal citizens.

The facts don't change. The state is constitutionally forbidden from trampling the rights of law-abiding citizens because of the actions of a tiny minority, no matter how heinous those actions may be. And, where carry for self-defense is prohibited, there is nothing that can be done short of magnetometer screening at entrances that will have any effect on the ability of disturbed individuals from wreaking havoc.
Those are the facts. They don't change.

The right to bear arms exists today. If taken away, it will be through greater firepower - unfortunately. It is people that commit violence, not the tools with which the violence is committed. When a person is beaten to death with a baseball bat, the baseball bat isn't blamed....The person is blamed. So why when a person is killed with a gun, the gun is the source of the violence? Make the guns illegal and the violence will stop? Ask those in Chicago, they will confirm it - Right??? Are motor vehicles responsible for the violence in London last week, when he van drove into the group of people? Oh, and the knives used to stab the other victims....was it the knives or the people wielding the knife the cause of the violence? It's not the tool that is the cause of violence. It is the HUMAN. Removing the tool only forces person committing violence to find a tool which will do the job...A gun, a knife, a rock, a stick. Man is the problem, not the tool. When the tools are removed, the potential for violence will still exist...Mankind will always seek to wield power over another and call it AUTHORITY.

The "Gun Safety" types have no interest in Gun Safety and have never spent a penny on it. They promote allowing only criminals and lunatics obtain untraceable guns on the Black Market that their efforts established and caused to flourish.

Have you heard of Besmartforkids.org? This is gun safety for kids....letting parents know how to safely store their guns and keep them away from curious children. In a 20 min. presentation you can save a life of a toddler, school-ager or teenager. 1 in 3 homes have guns and 1.7 million are UNSECURED.

Have you noticed that this "socially trained cum accidental reporter" always seems to be assigned the vacuous, tinderbox issues like "medical marijuana" or "gun rights", or any other subject that might ultimately further inflame a random, potential source of "neighborhood violence?

The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the high powers" delegated directly to the citizen, and `is excepted out of the general powers of government.' A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the lawmaking power." [Cockrum v. State, 24 Tex. 394, at 401-402 (1859)]

Our right to keep and bear arms comes from our right to life. No one can rightfully tell you how you can protect your own life.
Our rights do NOT come from government or other men. Whenever any court decides to curtail our natural right to protect ourselves, they do it in spite of our natural rights and the Constitution, not because of them. Our government is out of control.

this site rejected the accompanying link
The TRUTH about the "supremacy clause" - our Constitution does not delegate to the government authority to restrict our arms, ammunition, regulate firearms dealers, do background checks, etc. The national government may not lawfully circumvent this restriction by means of a treaty wherein the signatory governments agree to disarm their Citizens or Subjects.
publius huldah website

There is no such thing as "gun violence". This is a focus-group-driven buzzword and talking point to create an imaginary bogeyman as the main anti 2nd Amendment propaganda tool. There are PEOPLE who commit violence with guns, but there are many more people who commit violence without them.
And, since the term "gun violence" is a catchword/cliche, the title suggests an unattainable goal. People have been robbing and killing other people, using the weapons of the day, since the beginning of man on this planet, which identifies the real issue - controlling criminal impulses in humans, not the otherwise legal instruments they use to commit crimes.
Anyone who doesn't realize and/or acknowledge this isn't thinking, s/he is 'feeling', and our liberty cannot depend upon what anybody 'feels'.

The question to ask the gun control advocates is:
If all your proposed measures (except - possibly - for a complete ban on semiautomatic rifles, and then there would be no guarantees seeing as how the terrorist had plenty of time to murder all his victims) would not have prevented the shooting at the Pulse nightclub, what further measures do you propose that would have stopped that incident,or this one?
That's not a snark, but a serious question.

Some things don't make sense, I do believe that everyone how wants to carry a firearm should be trained and be proficient at handling a firearm, I myself carry with 38 States Reciprocity, I only carry to defend myself and my family anything else is none of my business, I can tell you this there are more people out there like myself that carry and don't get involved in other issues, I saw 3 guys beating up an old man, I called 911 and kept driving, not my business, I watched this guy beat up his girlfriend and her daughter. he looked at me and I kept driving called 911 , again not my problem.
The law does not protect us form doing the right thing so why I put my self in danger for a stranger,

I was wondering how this person could commit this atrocity in Florida, a state that allows its citizens to protect themselves with firearms. There it was, another "gun free zone" becomes a killing field. It amazes me that people can't see the connection. You folks that want to be defenseless sheep, be my guest. I choose not to be.

Most of the time these things happen very quickly. Maybe someone with a gun could have prevented the deaths. Probably not. Countries with lower levels of gun ownership have lower overall crime rates. Most gun deaths happen one by one and there are many incidents of gun accidents and suicides. This event should not be politicized and spun as a reason for more and more guns. Florida already has extreme gun laws - we need fewer people with guns not more. These people and their families are grieving. Leave them alone.

Do you mean like Mexico? Only one gun store in the entire country, legal firearms restricted to single shot or under powered revolvers, ammunition severely limited and controlled; with a crime rate that makes south side Chicago look clam and peaceful.

England, France, Venezuela, Cuba, and ANY OTHER Country (Communist, Socialist, Whatever, etc): ALL have "lower levels of gun ownership", but NOT necessarily lower overall crime rates ! MANY of the "governments" of these countries KILL THEIR OWN CITIZENS...most of the time with GUNS!!! America's "Founders" were well aware of this phenomena, even way back then... and they SPECIFICALLY included the SECOND AMENDMENT in our Constitution to PROTECT America's citizens from A GOVERNMENT RUN AMOK ! "Times" HAVEN"T CHANGED,.. only in that FAR MORE countries perpetrate wholesale violence and death upon their citizens: AMERICA does NOT, and CANNOT (KNOW WHY?); simply because of our SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHT for CITIZENS to bear arms (This automatically provides for an omnipresence that overwhelmingly forewarns a "government with the thought of, or on the brink of, controlling its Citizens movements and freedoms towards an ultimate goal of SERVITUDE")... [IF you "get your head out of your I-PAD", you'll find that this is more prevalent than you can imagine or want to believe; and this is EXACTLY the fate the Middle East has in store for YOU and the world....with complicit 'political assistance' of the countries of the world in return for quid pro quo promises, that will NEVER come to fruition 'after the fact' of subjugation... WAKE UP AMERICA ! ! !